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Windows Server Essentials Connector An Unexpected Error Occurred

June 28, 2018 by Robert Pearman 2 Comments

Just recently i decided to rebuild my lab setup, which sits on a physical server in my office.

Unfortunately after painstakingly moving VHDs around my system to adjust disk space and rebuild arrays, i managed to format the wrong disk and lost it all! Being a lab setup i had not backed any of it up either.

Not the end of the world of course, more annoyed with myself than worried about the test VMs i lost.

Anyway, i noticed a thread in the TechNet forum (at least two actually) mentioning slow network performance with WIndows 10 after the latest update, and that removing the Essentials connector would remedy it.

So i set about building a Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials VM and a Windows 10 client. When trying to launch the connector I received this error:

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Filed under General, Tips & Tricks, WSE Tagged with Connector, Essentials 2012 R2, Windows 10, Windows 2012 R2

Customising the Windows 10 Taskbar

March 8, 2018 by Robert Pearman 2 Comments

I wrote a series of guides about basic configuration of MDT and how you could customise the Start Menu, and with some further trickery, the Taskbar. I was never particularly happy with that section as it involved using a script to edit the registry after a user had logged in for the first time. Which, when talking about automation or consistency leaves a bit to be desired.

Recently I have fielded a few support calls where Windows 10 users have received a new device and started using Windows Mail, instead of Outlook even though that was installed and configured on their machines. The problem here is that Windows Mail is on the taskbar by default, as well as being on the Start Menu with a nice live tile saying ‘use me for your email’.
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Solarwinds MSP Script Check – Spectre

January 9, 2018 by Robert Pearman Leave a comment

Ah, Mr Bond I have been.. no that’s a different Spectre.

If you are reading this then you will know what Spectre is. It is of course a new, vulnerability announced in nearly every device on the planet. Possibly some on Mars and the ISS as well. Definitely on many you look after.

Skipping over the technical details of the problem, which are covered in far greater detail and by those with far superior expertise elsewhere, I wanted to focus on a quick check I implemented for our MSP clients.

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Filed under General, PowerShell Tagged with GFI, Intel, MSP, PowerShell, Script Check, Solarwinds, Spectre

Quick Fix: Fortinet SSLVPN 98% Error Unable to Establish the Connection

November 3, 2017 by Robert Pearman 1 Comment

This one puzzled me for several hours this week. After making some changes to the structured cabling we were alerted to an issue preventing SSLVPNs from connecting.

Anyone attempting to connect saw the progress stop at 98% received an error similar to :

Unable to establish the VPN Connection (E=98,T-981066010,M99,R10)

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Filed under General, SSL, Tips & Tricks Tagged with fortinet, ios, SSL, VPN

Quick Fix – Dissapearing Icons – Windows 7

September 5, 2017 by Robert Pearman Leave a comment

Updated to include information on the ADMX templates.

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Customer had reported to me that their Icons had dissapeard for the second week in a row on a Monday morning…

Weird I thought.

Maintenance Microsoft thinks..

It seems if you have more than 4 ‘broken’ shortcuts on your desktop Microsoft will clean them up for you.

Microsoft defines broken as a shortcut to unavailable resource.

I can see the value of that – in theorey, but imagine this – a customer with a laptop who links directly to shared folders on their corporate LAN, all those links are broken come monday morning.

Not the best idea i have seen implemented in Windows 7.

Anyway, great article here for hints and tips on making the best of Windows 7 maintenance.

http://www.verboon.info/index.php/2010/11/control-windows-7-scheduled-maintenance-behavior-through-group-policy/

Update: If you do not have the Scheduled Maintenance policy in your GPMC, you may need to copy sdiagschd.admx and sdiagschd.adml from a client computer to the domain…

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WSUS 2012 R2 and Windows 10 1703

August 1, 2017 by Robert Pearman Leave a comment

I have been working on WSUS and Windows 10 for the last few days, following some rather annoying updates to newly deployed Surface Pro devices, and more importantly a grumbling comment from a co-worker ‘can’t we automate this stuff anymore?’.

Well i have to say that was the final straw. Windows 10 and WSUS has been a pain for me since it was released.

With hotfixes, tweaks and dances required and failing to get Windows 10 talking and working with WSUS consistently it perhaps was no surprise that i had opted to point 10 directly to Windows update and only control the schedule and ring, rather than the more traditional granular approach taken with Windows 7 and 8.

So, Yes, the answer is we should be able to manage patching with Windows 10.

Yes, we are going to manage it.

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Filed under General, PowerShell, Tips & Tricks Tagged with Upgrades, Windows 10, WSUS

Update to Windows Management Framework 5.1 on Windows 7

July 31, 2017 by Robert Pearman Leave a comment

Over the weekend i read this article about PowerShell Security in the Enterprise. I decided whilst reading it, i should probably make sure my clients machines have the latest WMF installed.

Assuming this was just a KB article i searched WSUS for KB and found nothing. Reading the blog article about the 5.1 release and then the Install and Configure guidance, we see that WMF 5.1 is released to Windows 7, but, manual steps are required to install it.

The download comes as a ZIP file with a PowerShell script (Install-WMF5.1.ps1) and an MSU for the architecture of the PC.

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